The City of the Crossing - Wardner B.C.

September 16th, 2021 1 Minutes
Kootenay River & Crow’s Nest Pass Lumber Co. Collection No. 0017.0113 ca. 1909:
Wardner B.C. – Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History

Join us in our multi-part series on Wardner B.C. for a glimpse of pioneers and adventurers in the late 1890s. Trials and tribulations were part of founding the area and inherent in the great strides necessary to forge ahead through gritty, turbulent, and harsh conditions.

The town of Wardner in early 1897 was the last town built as part of the “Old West Era” of stagecoaches, undiscovered country, and pioneers who make the story of its first year historically significant. It was named the City of the Crossing because it was located where the railroad crossed the river.

Constance and Christopher Graf in Reflections on the Kootenay, Wardner B.C. 1897-1997.

Approximately 10,000 people migrated to the East Kootenay’s from 1897-1898. The East Kootenay valley was slated to be an industrial centre, comparable to the Klondike.

Centre Street, Wardner B.C. Collection No. 2040.0741, June 26, 1911:
Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History and School District No. 5

Wardner boasted excellent natural conditions and seemed to be the ideal location for a future smelter. These attributes were part of its original appeal.

The burgeoning town lost its bid for the smelter when the Canadian Pacific Railway chose Cranbrook for its master station in the East Kootenays.

Eventually, Trail B.C. built the smelter.

From July 1897 to October 1898, the C.P.R. constructed the 330 mile long, $10 million, B.C. Southern-Crow’s Nest Pass Railroad from Lethbridge N.W.T. through Wardner, the halfway point where the East Kootenay River was bridged, then west up to Kootenay Lake. The railroad opened up the East Kootenay valley. It was primarily an undeveloped area serviced only by wagon trains and steamboats from the U.S.

Constance and Christopher Graf in Reflections on the Kootenay, Wardner B.C. 1897-1997.

At Wardner’s inception, waterways were the only way to transfer supplies before constructing the railway. Wardner’s sawmill, newspaper plant, food, and supplies were brought by steamboat from Jennings, Montana, along the Kootenay River via steamboat.

The series will continue with ‘The Riverboat Era’.

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